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War and Terror

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The last issue of Action for Solidarity went to press two days after the aircraft attack on the US. At the time We believed the British left had condemned the attacks. That was not quite right.

All of the British left have described the events as horriﬁc, of course but most have not made an unequivocal condemnation. Rather they have condemned the “tactics” of the attackers(Socialist Party) or said they condemn the attack “because the actions will not take forward the struggle against US domination by a single step...” (Workers Power).

Comment from the time on left groups' responses to the 11 September 2001 atrocity in New York.

Issues and Campaigns:

Author:

Simon Nelson

The Stop The War Coalition enjoyed its heyday around the time of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but has regained some prominence since David Cameron’s government first proposed the bombing of Syria in August 2013.

A genuine anti-war movement needs to have an internationalist viewpoint. Solidarity against the forces of barbarism whether western or not should be our guiding principle. And the Stop the War Coalition has singularly failed to follow it.

As part of being formally inducted into a new role, I had the pleasure of receiving a session on Prevent. This consisted of a heavily prescribed and standardised script and DVD presentation. It was clear the tutor was not allowed to depart from the script, expand or engage in discussion.

There is a world of difference between movements and organisations fighting for basic democratic, national, human and social rights, and those which seek to impose some form of clerical-fascist dictatorship.

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Editorial

On Wednesday 2 December (after we go to press) the House of Commons will vote on proposals to extend UK air strikes to Syria. As Jeremy Corbyn has given Labour MPs a free vote, Cameron is likely to have a majority for extending the bombing.

Increased bombing in Syria is fundamentally not aimed towards ending the ongoing and vicious sectarian conflict there, and will not bring that end closer.

Author:

Pierre Rousset and François Sabado (Nouvel Parti Anticapitaliste)

Pierre Rousset and François Sabado are prominent members of the Nouvel Parti Anticapitaliste (New Anticapitalist Party, NPA), France's largest far-left party. They are both veterans of the Ligue Communiste Revolutionnaire (Revolutionary Communist League, LCR), the Trotskyist group which founded the NPA and then dissolved into it. This article was originally written for the Spanish-language site Viento Sur, and is online here.

Author:

Omar Raii

It has been fourteen years since United States forces invaded Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks in New York.

The ostensible reason for the invasion and subsequent toppling from power of the Taliban-controlled government was due to their links with Al-Qaeda and jihadist networks. Since then, though it is undeniable that large parts of Afghanistan have much improved, the country is still plagued by many problems such as corruption, and all the while the Taliban have shown recently that they are far from a spent force in the country.

Issues and Campaigns:

Author:

Omar Raii

Afghan and US forces have found themselves under intense criticism after the bombing of a Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) hospital in the city of Kunduz, during an attempted recapture of the city.

Kunduz, an ethnically mixed city in the north of the country and close to the border with Tajikistan, has previously been under threat from Taliban forces that have long held sway in provincial areas around the city. Following a planned offensive on 28 September, the Taliban captured most of the city.

Afghan and US forces have found themselves under intense criticism after the bombing of a hospital in Kunduz during an attempted recapture of the city.

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Author:

Simon Nelson

Cameron’s original justification for drone strikes in Syria, killing two British nationals, was that the “targets” were an “imminent threat” to UK security. He needed to explain contravention of a 2013 House of Commons vote outlawing military action in Syria.

Cameron said he had seen intelligence that both Reyaad Khan and Ruhul Amin were in touch with others in the UK who planned to launch attacks to coincide with the VE Day anniversary, 8 May 2015. But the drone strikes which killed them did not occur until 21 August 2015...

The killing of Daesh fighters may not be something to mourn, but the manner and scope of the powers which have been used to intervene is of great concern.

Around the world:

Publications:

Author:

Pat Murphy

On 20 July 20 David Cameron spoke to a selected audience at an academy school in Birmingham about tackling violent extremism in Britain.

While there were fleeting references to the far right and Islamophobia, the main focus of his speech was the extremism that led, among other things, to hundreds of young people leaving their homes in Britain to join Daesh (Islamic State). The speech was fundamentally about Islamist extremism.

Cameron is not wrong to see Islamist terror as a problem, or to see the links between the violent and the non-violent form. He is also not wrong to say that a more cohesive and integrated society would help undercut the attraction of simple but reactionary cults. But the neo-liberal economic and social policies which are at the absolute core of his government are incapable of creating such a society. On the contrary they magnify and exacerbate the levels of inequality and alienation we already endure.